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Invasion

23 16:30:49

Question
My wife and I decided to get a fresh water aquarium. We got 2 sunrise platys a black molly and a cae.  Well that was about two months ago and as of tonight we have 12 baby platys.  Not all born at the same time as they seem to come in threes. As I have read, it would seem that we are supposed to move the mama to a different tank as well as the babies.  We have left well enough alone and they seem to be thriving.  My question is... There are two pebble size clusters in my tank that were not there yesterday and they are like a flouresent pink in color.  At first I thought they were eggs with more babies on the way, but it seems that these little ones are born straight from mom.  What could these masses be and are they possibly dangerous to what is now our commmunity?

Answer
I leave the babies in the tank with the other fish and always have a bunch of them around... too many actually. IMO it stresses them out too much to move them to a grow out tank and it stresses the mother too much to move her before giving birth, then again after. Often times the mother will actually abort the fry as a result of the move. You're right on to leave well enough alone.
Mollies and Platties are both live bearers, but the cae is an egg layer. First off I have to say that it is very rare for them to lay eggs in captivity, but not totally unheard of. Also because we are seeing many different color varieties of them these days, it's safe to say someone is breeding them. If yours were bred in captivity or even pregnant when it was caught, it could have laid eggs. I have no idea what they would look like though? I tried searching for pictures but because it is so rare for them to breed in captivity, there is very little information available.